The invention relates generally to therapeutic wraps for thermal treatment of the human body.
It is known that the application of heat and/or cold to the body has not only many therapeutic benefits, but is also very relaxing to the individual to which it is administered.
Devices such as hot water bottles have been used for applying heat to the body, but such devices can become moist with condensation, and are not flexible enough to conform to the shape of the body. Additionally, heat retention is only maintained for a short period of time. Similar devices were used to apply cold to the body by filling a receptacle with ice cubes and/or chilled water. Such devices suffer similar shortcomings to the hot water bottle.
Other devices were developed over the years to overcome these shortcomings.
A suboccipital pillow for applying hot and/or cold treatments to the neck and the suboccipital areas of the body was developed. The pillow is generally of a crescent shape, one side of which is fitted with a lightly insulated pocket and the other side of which is fitted with a heavily insulated pocket into which crescent shape gel packs can be inserted after they are either heated or chilled.
Another device includes a temperature packet applied to the neck or shoulder of a user. The particular design of the temperature packet, however, does not provide enough surface area directly over the particular muscles to which heat or cold should be applied.
Known devices are not configurable to conform to multiple different body parts in multiple orientations. Accordingly, a need exists for such a device that can also include multiple receptacles to receive individual packets of thermoconductive material.